Singita Grumeti leads the fray to save black rhino

2009-01-04 11:34:51
By Robert Ochieng, recently in Serengeti


Two beasts of the black rhino, one heavy with pregnancy due to give birth next March, kept in the protective enclave of the Singita Grumeti Reserve at the Serengeti national park in Mara Region give hope to efforts to save one of the world`s rare species from extinction.

The reserve`s Grumeti Fund Managing Director, Brian Harris, said that the expected birth of a calf gives new hope that the once zoo-bred rhinos can breed in the wild at levels high enough to keep the local population alive into the future.

``Besides cutting them off completely from human contact, the next most important thing we can do is to protect their habitat so that they can breed easily and adapt to the wild nature,`` he said in a recent interview with The Guardian on Sunday.

Initially being fed on manufactured food products while at separate zoos in the United Kingdom before they were flown into the country and taken to the Singita Grumeti Reserve, the rhinos have now adapted to the wild vegetation, which provides their feeding and nutritional needs, just like other ordinary wildlife.

Brian further said that the reserve\'s South African investor Paul Tudor Jones plans to purchase 45 rhinos from his country to be donated to the Tanzanian government in an effort to bolster the population of the endangered species of black rhino, which have been hunted for decades for their highly-prized trophies.

The programme, which is championed by Singita Grumeti Reserves and backed by a couple of other respective wildlife stakeholders, is aiming at working towards the ultimate goal of eventually restoring the Serengeti Ecosystem black rhino population back to its former levels of the sixties.

Singita Grumeti Reserves Managing Director Graham Ledger said towards this end, the first priority was controlling the previously extensive poaching activities which have ultimately halted.

``It was necessary to establish an anti poaching unit, and after three years, the unit has had an unprecedented impact and poaching has become virtually unknown in the Grumeti reserve,`` Ledger confidently said.

The Government has previously admitted that besides the current world economic crunch having significantly affected tourism in the country, poaching has continued to deal a devastating blow to the country`s highest foreign exchange earner.

On a recent tour of Singita Grumeti Reserve funded projects in Serengeti and Bunda districts, Natural Resources and Tourism Minister Shamsa Mwangunga told journalists that the country was losing unprecedented number of wild animals due to uncontrolled poaching activities.

According to the minister, poaching has dealt a serious blow to the black rhino breed, which has been hunted to near extinction, but efforts are being made through ``save the rhino programme`` to bring zoo-bred East African black rhino back from foreign countries to their original homelands in the Serengeti.

``While efforts have been, and still continue to be made to fight these practices whose obvious ramifications have adversely affected, and particularly so, the rarest of species of our wildlife, the society needs to be aware that the welfare of our natural sanctuaries and resources is a matter of concerted efforts,`` the minister stated.

``Government has been working collaboratively with other tourism stakeholders to promote a sustainable commercial and environmental friendly tourism venture by adopting public-private partnership programmes,`` Mwangunga said.

By working out such modalities, the government seeks to partner with private individual or corporate organisations in the management, conservation, and increase of wildlife in the country`s natural sanctuaries.

Meanwhile, after bringing Africa’s black rhinos back from the brink of extinction, one of the world`s most successful conservation programmes celebrated its first decade early in the year by seeking to extend its operations to more of Africa.

The event, which took place at KwaZulu Natal in South Africa, brought together representatives of the governments of Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia as well as wildlife and community representatives plus eco-tourism operators from the current African Rhino Programme participating countries.

``What we have shown is that in partnership with governments and communities and business it is possible to stave off extinction for the rhino in some of its former range,`` Wild World Fund`s International`s Species Programme Director Dr Susan Lieberman told the participants at the event before adding: ``The task now is to secure a future for the rhino in the rest of its range, where threats from poaching and development urgently need to be addressed.``

Africa`s savannas once teemed with more than a million white and black rhinos.

However, relentless hunting by European settlers saw rhino numbers and distribution quickly decline.

Added to hunting and habitat loss, trade in rhino horn peaked in the 1970s and 1980s, when huge quantities were shipped to the lucrative markets of the Middle East and Asia.

Responding to the crisis, both species of African rhino were listed in 1977 in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which prohibited all international trade of rhino parts and products.

Despite this international legal protection, the black rhino population at its lowest point dipped to 2,400 in 1995.

In 1997, there were 8,466 white rhinos and 2,599 black rhinos remaining in the wild. Today, there are 14,500 white rhinos and nearly 4,000 of the more endangered black rhinos.

Today, most of Africa’s black rhinos are found in South Africa, Namibia, Kenya and Zimbabwe, where the species`decline has been stopped through effective security monitoring, better biological management, wildlife-based tourism and extensive assistance to enable communities to benefit from rather than be in conflict with wildlife.

According to the African Rhino Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission, Africa`s white and black rhino numbers have shown annual growth rates of 6.8 per cent and 4.5 per cent respectively since 1995.

SOURCE: Sunday Observer